Miao Ying Studio
Alex Ayed, Rä di Martino, Cevdet Erek, David Jablonowski, Miao Ying, Alexandra Pirici
The MAMbo opens its autumn season of exhibitions with The Floating Collection, a group exhibition born out of the desire to study the collections of the Bolognese museums – the Settore Musei Civici Bologna and other museum systems of the city – through the gaze of six artists: Alex Ayed (Strasbourg, 1989), Rä di Martino (Rome, 1975), Cevdet Erek (Istanbul, 1974), David Jablonowski (Bochum, 1982), Miao Ying (Shanghai, 1985), Alexandra Pirici (Bucharest, 1982).
In preparation for the exhibition, through visits, in-depth sessions with museum staff and unplanned journeys, several collections and significant places of the city have been turned into resources, in a “research platform” which is capable of opening trajectories of socio-cultural and aesthetic investigation.
The Floating Collection, curated by Lorenzo Balbi and Caterina Molteni, draws inspiration from the decolonization debate and processes started in the ethnographic and anthropological museums all over the world which, starting from the 90’s, have committed to review the history of their own heritage, by experimenting new investigation approaches on collections and new mediation approaches with the audience. As it enters this context, the exhibition focuses on the languages of visual arts, by proposing them as tools which are capable of reinterpreting the histories of the city, reactivating and reimagining them with eyes free from the usual narrative structures and methodological approaches.